What is it about?
Hospitals often use temporary nursing staff. These staff are used to compensate for short terms staff absences but can also be used as an efficiency measure so extra staff are employed only when needed. A lot of research shows that low nurse staffing is linked to worse patient outcomes but it is unclear if the use of temporary staff is problematic. In this study, we look to see if daily the number of hours of care from temporary staff is associated with the risk of death, after adjusting for the total hours of care provided and patients underlying risk of dying.
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Why is it important?
The use of temporary staff is increasing, partly as a response to staff shortages and partly because of the potential efficiency of employing staff 'only when needed'. We need to understand if there are any adverse consequences. Our findings show that modest use of temporary registered nurses is not linked to increase risk, but when there is heavy use of temporary staff the risk of patients dying in hospital is substantially increased.
Perspectives
Hospitals face a dilemma because we know it is important to maintain registered nurse numbers to ensure patient safety. This paper shows that within certain limits temporary staffing can help achieve this. However, this study suggests that over-reliance on temporary staff is not a viable or safe solution to staffing shortages. At best it represents a necessary evil in the short term. It may be that additional staff are required to overcome the risks associated with temporary staff.
Dr Peter Griffiths
University of Southampton
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Temporary Staffing and Patient Death in Acute Care Hospitals: A Retrospective Longitudinal Study, Journal of Nursing Scholarship, December 2019, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/jnu.12537.
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